


Scotomaphobia

by Moremoran



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Blind Character, Blindness, Cutting, Gen, There will be fluff, Triggers, Violence, trigger warning
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-08-12
Updated: 2015-09-05
Packaged: 2018-02-12 21:55:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 5,842
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2125974
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Moremoran/pseuds/Moremoran
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After being attacked, Jim Moriarty suffered acid burns and total blindness in both eyes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> when i read tumblr user pastelgotherik's headcanon for blind!jim i instantly wanted to write a little fic for it. so here i go

You would've thought they were in some war torn country with what happened that day. Cambodia or something, not Dublin. Not here. Not at home where they should've been safe. How were they supposed to respond to this? Just a phone call before dinner saying their son was in the hospital and they needed to get to the emergency room immediately.

> _"Hey kid! Tell your friends this is our territory!"_

The burn unit did everything they could to minimize the damage. But some things couldn't be stopped or reversed. Like the colour of his eyes or skin around them. The doctors braced his parents for the worst, but of course no one knew what that would actually be. Not until the bandages came off.

> _**Dark. Burning fire and darkness. My eyes. My eyes. I can't see. Burning. Fuck. Someone help. Can't speak. Screaming. Just screaming. Help.** _

His hands were wrapped up to his wrists, the poor thing tried to wipe it out of his eyes. He was just a kid, how was he supposed to know not to touch it. It was a good job they put him under, let him sleep. Rest. Maybe the pain wouldn't be as bad when he woke up and they told him. 

> _"Acid? Why the fuck would someone sling acid into my son's eyes?!"_

Four days, two skin graft surgeries and another day to just sleep. The doctors didn't want to keep him under so long but his mother was adamant. He would be so upset. Could do more damage awake than sleeping. The police weren't too thrilled with having to stop their investigation though. Of course not. The pigs.

> "Let the boy sleep," she'd say. "Let him rest before you make him relive it. Can't you see he's hurt."

When he did wake up it wasn't any easier. Especially when he was told he couldn't cry even though he wanted to, even when he heard his mother weeping. Moaning, "His eyes...his beautiful brown eyes..." She couldn't help it, when they took the bandages off to check his eyes and she saw them for the first time. "His beautiful eyes..." She would whimper before her husband pulled her to his chest to try and comfort the grieving mother. The boy wouldn't know, he'd never have to see the ugly colour they were now. He'd never have to see the foggy, milky grey film that seemed to be spread over the entire eye.

He was silent as the doctors prodded and moved him, of course all there was to him was darkness. He knew there had been something covering his eyes before, could feel the cool air hitting what felt like his wet skin but he couldn't see anything. Black. Nothing.

"Mumma?" His voice shook like a trembling leaf before breaking off the branch. "Mumma I can't see anything." His eyes searched desperately, as if he might regain some sight if he only looked hard enough. It was his father, in the end, that said it finally. Making it real.

"James, I'm sorry son. They did everything they could..."


	2. Denial

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There are five stages of grief and loss. And it starts with denial.

Jim was able to go home a week later. After the doctors had checked the grafts around his eyes and the less sever burns on his fingers and hands. He'd have follow up appointments while he was healing but being home was so much better than that horrible hospital room. He felt like his body would reek of disinfectant and death for years after being there for so long. He wasn't able to shower though, there was a pretty sizable wound on his lower back where they took the graft from and he couldn't see to wash it correctly. So his mother had to help him. He was so fucking embarrassed and sick of other people having to help him do everything. 

"Stop!" He shouted at her, shoving the woman out of the way and away from him. "I can do it myself! I'm not a child. I'm fine." 

"James..." His mother tried to soothe him, touch his shoulder only to he pushed away again. "I have to-"

"No! No. I can do it." Jim shouted, standing in the bathroom naked save for the badges wrapped around his eyes and back. 

He didn't move until he heard the door shut and carefully he reached out to see - or feel - if anyone was there. But he misjudged the distance to the counter and slipped, falling on his side making him gasp and bite his lip so he didn't make a sound. The last thing he wanted was someone to come find him like this even if it meant biting down so hard he began bleeding. 

It took him a while but he climbed back up to stand by the counter. There were two flannels by the sink and a bottle of baby-grade soap he was supposed to use in case it got into his wounds. Blindly, he reached out and knocked something over, and he tried again only to ram his knuckle into the tap. Then the water was too hot, he spilt the soap and knocked off the second clean flannel onto the floor. An hour had passed by this point and Jim was scrambling to find the dry cloth just so he could wash himself and feel normal. He was fine. He was normal. He would be fine. 

A knock came to the door and Jim shook his head even though no one could see him. 

"James? Jamie, please open the door. Let me help you." His mother asked in a soft voice as she tried to hold herself together. 

Jim's lips quivered and he went to speak but a tiny gasp came out before he slammed his fist against the cabinet, something falling inside from the force of the hit. He didn't need help. 

He was fine. 

He would be fine. This wouldn't last forever.


	3. Anger

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> First comes denial, then comes anger

It was a year later, Jim had turned sixteen and moved out of his parents home and found his own flat. Of course it took a lot of convincing but in the end he moved into a studio apartment half an hour away and dropped out of school just before college began. He was homeschooled after the incident and that was if. There was no way he would go back after he felt the way his face had scarred. 

That day was burned into his mind, when he wasn't sore anymore and could risk touching. Sitting in his bedroom, in the corner of his bed hands shaking as he reached up to his face. The skin wrinkled and stretched, making goose flesh prickle along his arms. Part of his left eyebrow gone forever and a thick line down his cheek rippled under his fingertips. It was like a mask forever molded against his face. 

Now he stood in this silent flat, hand wrapped around the stupid cane he was forced to use so he couldn't trip over anything. Feeling ugly and pathetic. God he used to feel powerful. Even at fifteen he used to feel like the coolest person in the world, attractive and popular. He was smart, so smart, and everyone loved him. Teachers said he was charismatic and students would say he was funny. Now when people saw him he could feel then recoil, could feel the eyes burning into him as he rode the tube. Children would ask their parents what was wrong with him and it was all he could do to not scream at them. He'd gotten into trouble for that enough times. 

Jim was walking from his flat to the tescos just a few blocks south when he heard someone whispering about his scars they could see behind his dark sunglasses. He clenched his jaw and gripped onto long cane as he listened to them wonder outloud about his condition without bothering asking him. As if he was deaf too. 

"What?!" He snapped and swung the white cane at their feet making one of them fall. "What is it?" Jim yanked off his glasses. "Is it the scars!? Hmm?" 

One of them, a girl, gasped and shook her head which of course Jim couldn't see. 

"Are you just going to gasp and stare or will you treat me like a fucking human being? Come on? I'm the freak so ask away." He practically spat at them. But all he could hear next was their running feet tapping against the concrete sidewalk. 

Events like that happened more often than not. Sending Jim into a rage for days and leaving him at home with boiling energy he didn't know how to expel. He paced around his flat seething and shaking he was so frustrated. So tired of not knowing what was happening around him. 

Until one day it was just too much and he was sitting in the floor of his bathroom, a broken apart safety razor in his hand as blood trickled down his right arm.


	4. Bargaining

It was hard after that to do anything else when he was stressed out. It helped in some sick way, the way he could control it, the way his body did what he wanted and would look the way he knew it would. It was all in his power, and he felt stronger for it. Of course like any high it didn't last and the come down was worse than how he felt before. It didn't stop him from keeping the razor at arm's length wherever he was. 

Jim wasn't doing well at all now, despite his reasonings with himself he couldn't even believe his own bullshit most days. He'd do his assignments when he felt up to them. The professors would understand. He'd be fine in his classes if he didn't go in that day, week, month. He was clever, it would be fine. 

And it was fine until he got a notice from the school admissions office informing him that if he didn't have a written note from a physician excusing him for every class he'd missed that term he would be withdrawn from the programme. Within the week he was taken off the school's roster and removed completely from the campus housing. He was too proud to ask for help, there was no way he would contact his parents for anything after the fuss he made about leaving to be on his own. 

Jim was put up in a hotel room he could hardly afford on the government disability pension. It smelt like stale cigarettes and cheap perfume, though nothing could cover the stench of just how pathetic it was that he ended up here. Fuck maybe if he'd not been such an arrogant little prick, if he'd not been so keen on showing off in front of the other boys he wouldn't have been there. If he hadn't have wanted to prove that he was just as cool as the older boys he wouldn't have gone to that fucking neighborhood that night. Maybe if he had just said he was sorry instead of calling them 'a bag of cunts' he wouldn't have gotten acid thrown in his face the next night. 

The 'what if's rolled around his head all night, every night, all the while he bargained with God that if he got his sight back he would be a better person. He'd try harder, he'd do more work, he'd really pull himself around. 

But of course that wouldn't happen. He would never get his vision back, he would always have angry and rough scars surrounding his face and down his cheek. Jim's face would have a mask of rippled flesh that he would always hide with thick framed sunglasses in hopes no one would notice. And in time the knowledge that no matter how much he prayed to whatever God was there and nothing would change, the less he believed they existed. No one was there looking out for him, because if that had been true then why would he even be here in the first place? Jim was alone in this world, no one was there protecting him, no one was listening to his midnight sobbing prayers, no one looked over his shoulder to keep him safe. And no one was going to help when the razor cut in a little too deep and he couldn't get the bleeding to stop. With trembling hands he fumbled for his mobile, trying to tap out a number when his thumb simply fell on the number 9 on his keypad as his consciousness slipped away. Lucky for Jim the mobile manufacture enabled an emergency feature where a continuous hold of the number 9 would issue a call to the 999 dispatch.


	5. Depression

Jim was sent home after that, back to his parent's house as he was deemed unfit to care for himself in his state. And he remained there until he was eighteen. He'd been seeing a therapist three times a week for almost six months before it went to just once a week. Then twice a month for the next year. He'd apparently been making incredible improvements and was looking happier each day. Finally accepting what happened to him for the freak accident that it was and not some punishment from God. The doctor was pleased to report to his parents that he would be able to take care of himself now that he'd been accepted into university once again after flunking out the first time. 

  


But for a clever young man like James Moriarty, acting fine was just that. Acting. Saying what they wanted to hear, having bad days to appear normal, slowly showing happiness and acceptance. It was easy, lasting an hour with the doctor and whenever he was near his family. Just pretending he was fine until he went back to his room where he'd break out his protractor and run the sharp end of the compass over his upper thighs. Holding his breath as the blood pooled then trickled down his pale and scarred flesh. He'd learned that it was too easy to accidentally go too deep with his wrist, a fleshier part of his body was much better when all he wanted was to feel some pain, feel the blood drip and wet his skin. He wished he could see it, sometimes. Wished he could see how red it was, how bad the scars were and if he'd cleaned up all the blood from the floor just in case. 

  


It went on for so long, the lying and pretending that he began to fool himself. Thinking he was happy most of the time. It was easy around people, like when he was in class and turned on the charm to make up for not being able to see anyone. He smiled and joked around, made brilliantly clever comments and was quickly the charmer of every single one of the classes he took. Of course they never saw the underneath. Behind the designer, square, blacked out glasses where all the mangled up flesh was. His foggy grey eyes and discoloured skin. No one got to see the disgusting scene beneath his clever words. At least they weren't ever supposed to. 

  


Jim took solace in swimming, when things got really bad and cutting wasn't, well excusing the pun, cutting it. He would make an appointment with the school gymnasium to have the pool for himself. With the help of his family's generous donation it wasn't hard for him to do on short notice. And he'd spend however long he needed swimming back and forth, doing long laps until he could hardly push himself out of the water. 

  


He was panting, a little red in the face as he pushed himself up out of the water and onto the edge of the pool where he sat with his legs still submerged. He dried his face with the towel he'd set aside and breathed in the fragrance of his laundry soap just before stiffening when he heard the heavy doors open and shut. No one was supposed to be allowed in for another thirty minutes. 

  


"Hello?" A female voice echoed through the tiled room. 

  


Jim stayed as still as he could before taking a chance at moving to stand. The water sloshed and made just enough noise to bring the university student around the side of the lockers before she saw him. Scars and all. She screamed out of shock and maybe some disgust. It sounded like she'd seen the devil or some gremlin, a horribly loud, blood curdling scream that echoed for the next age all around Jim. He had no idea if she'd ran or not just from how loud the reverberations were hitting him like he was reliving it again and again. 

  


They all knew after that. Even people Jim had never been around knew about the "freaky skin around his eyes" and how he "looked like a fucking monster" with those "eyes out of a horror film." Everyone knew why he wore the glasses all the time, why he never let anyone get too close. They all stopped talking to him after that, they stopped laughing at his comments, they stopped telling him he was clever and before long no one said anything to him at all. It all turned into behind his back whispering. Or in front of him just because he couldn't see they thought their pathetic gossiping was soft enough to get away with. Inside he boiled with rage, blood pumping so fast he swore he'd rip open every scar on his legs and arms and bleed to death. Most of the time he wished he would. The other part was wishing they'd all shut the fuck up or just say it to his face. 

  


He stopped trying to be nice after that. He just couldn't do it anymore, he couldn't stand there and be anything resembling 'nice' after everything that happened that year. Jim was once known for being charming and wonderful company would soon be described as cold, distant and unapologetically cruel from students and professors alike. And it wouldn't change for the rest of his university career. If anyone got in his way he'd move them by force, metaphorically and literally. He stopped needing his long cane when he was on campus when the last person who tripped him ended up missing then found ten days later drowned in his own bathtub. And no one had the guts to accuse Jim, not that they'd ever be able to prove it anyway. 


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> *its late and I wanted to post this so I'll check for spelling tomorrow xx

Living half his life with people being uncomfortable around him kept Jim constantly bitter, angry and divorced from the rest of the world. He could've really been something of things hadn't have happened the way it did. If he wasn't there that night and he wasn't plastered in grotesque scars and chewed up flesh. He could've been a politician, a great leader, someone everyone wanted to know. Instead he was whispered about. Questioned. Stared at even if they thought he wouldn't notice. He always felt it. Their eyes burning into him, that primal instinct of knowing when someone was watching him. He knew. He always fucking knew. 

  


Years ago he was able to get on without the long stick, he knew the pavements, knew the way everything felt so he wouldn't trip. He could hear the construction and knew when a power cord would be near, when scaffolding was coming up. Could sense when the environment changed and he adapted quickly. Of course busy London sidewalks were constantly changing and he was clever but something always slipped through. Like someone stopping short and making Jim slam into them, his glasses falling off and in a second later crunchy under another person's shoe. 

  


"Ay, watch it. What kind of arsehole wears sunglasses at half six..." The man's voice faded as it sounded like he was beginning to understand. 

  


Jim kept his head tilted down as he waited for his sunglasses to be placed in his hand. When nothing happened he sighed, aggravated by keeping his arm outstretched. 

  


"Give me my glasses. Now." Jim hissed between his teeth. His fingers were tense and his hand almost shook with how tight he was holding himself. 

  


"Sorry mate it..." He paused again. Jim could hear the sound of broken glass trickling onto the pavement. "It looks like you need a new pair." 

  


Jim's hand curled into a fist as he kept himself from ripping the man's throat out for making him so angry. His jaw tightened as it began to get busy again, like a wave coming over him with people pushing past and bumping into him. They were of course standing in the middle of the walkway. 

  


"Let me get you a new pair. It's the least I can do." The man had stepped closer, he sounded louder and Jim could make out the scent of cheap cigarettes on him. 

  


"I don't need your help." He spat the words like piercing venom and turned to walk the opposite direction which disrupted the flow of foot traffic and someone collided with him and swore loudly. 

  


Jim practically roared under his breath and pushed the man as hard as he could, hearing him connect with the stone wall of a building. He must've looked like he was about to pull a gun as that was the only sound reason he would accept as the stranger grabbed Jim by the crook of the elbow and dragged him away. 

  


"Fuck you've got a temper on you. Come on before someone accidentally breathes on you." 

  


Jim snatched his arm away and pulled his coat around himself a little more. He wasn't cold. It was just he felt exposed. Without his dark glasses his scars were out in the open. His disgusting eyes, showing his weakness for everyone to see.

  


Soon he felt the man's eyes on him, making him uncomfortable and he turned his head a little as he walked. His focus was off from where he was walking and more on the stranger near him causing him to clip the toe of his foot with a small lip in the sidewalk making him stumble. He was caught with the help of the stranger but pulled away almost instantly. 

  


"Fine. Look I'm trying to help and I get it you're proud but fuck. I don't normally do good things but I'm trying here."

  


Jim kept his head tilted down and after a brief pause he started walking again. He heard the other man begin as well and they shared a collective silence between them. Jim made a point to listen for anything he could to tell something about the man walking beside him, and noted that he couldn't hear him breathing. Most people made some sort of noise as they walked but this one was quiet. Almost stealth like in how he moved as if he didn't want to be noticed. Their fingers brushed once and they both pulled in closer to themselves to keep it from happening again. 

  


When they stopped they were inside a small shop, he could hear the stranger talking with the owner and began to look for glasses similar to the ones that broke. 

  


"Um...sorry you never said your name." The quiet one came over to Jim and he could practically feel the hesitating hand over his shoulder. 

  


"James." He said firmly without looking up completely. His head still tilted down but not as shamefully as before. 

  
"Right okay. I'll probably stick with Jim." The other said with a smile to his voice. "Sebastian." He said as an introduction and Jim heard his jacket rustle so he cautiously extended his hand to shake the others. 


	7. Favours

Sebastian Moran's handshake was firm, one he could get a lot of information from. Jim could feel the calloused tips of his fingers and around the base of his thumb. The top of his hand was smooth, soft with maybe the residue of oil lingering. It was over in a second once Jim has initiated the separation of their hands and he pulled back. He let the information process as he heard the shop keeper banging on about fixing his glasses and Sebastian has stepped away to settle payment as they waited. 

"So, you live around here?" He asked from a relative distance. Jim wasn't sure at first where he was but after a moment turned slightly. 

"Yes. Not two blocks." The Irishman said, gesturing towards the direction of his home. 

He could hear metal and assumed Sebastian nodded, maybe he had on a chain of some sort that moved under his shirt when he did. Then footsteps and the telltale feeling of someone being closer. 

"Here," Sebastian had a smile again, he could hear it stretch his lips making the word brighter. 

Jim felt metal and plastic touch his hand, fixing them so he could place the frames over his face and eyes. With the added cover, he instantly straightened up and looked more comfortable than before. 

"Thank you, it wasn't nece-"

"No it really was. I don't mind. Really it was a pleasure." Sebastian had cut him off mid sentence and brushed his hand over Jim's arm. 

It felt awkward to be honest, like he was meaning to touch somewhere else but ended up on the middle portion of his arm. He furrowed his brow behind the security of the dark black frames and instead of mentioning the strange touch he nodded. 

"Maybe I can return the favour sometime," he pulled out an embossed business card that had Jim's name pressed into the thick paper and Braille running underneath. 

"I hope you're serious because I might just use this." Sebastian said, sounding a little farther away as if he'd taken a step or two back away from Jim. 

The reaction wasn't one he was new to, someone always was nice in the beginning until they'd done their "good deed" and they wanted to get away as fast as possible. Jim nodded in the general direction he assumed Sebastian still was and then turned around to leave. He didn't stop or even pause when he heard footsteps shortly after, although they didn't follow more than a few feet down the road. He continued home where he tried his best to not think about the man who helped him that day. It was better to forget what was than dwell on what could've been. 

 

Two weeks passed before Jim's phone rang from an unknown number and he heard a familiar voice on the other end. 

"Hey, its that idiot who broke your glasses the other day..." 

"It was seventeen days ago, I'm not sure if that qualifies as 'the other day'." Jim walked to the sliding glass door to his balcony and stood outside so he could hear the sound of the city below. 

"You kept track of the days?" Sebastian sounded as if he was stopping a laugh. 

"I have a very good memory." Jim's voice, however, sounded a bit colder. "Did you need something?"

"I- yeah. I've come to cash in my favour." The man's voice changed, serious now. 

"Oh?" 

"I asked about you. Not many good reviews Jim. At least that is to say, everyone is scared of you." 

"What is the favour, Moran?" Jim said, impatient now. 

There was a long pause before he sighed, "I need to disappear." 


	8. Vanishing act

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's a slight change in POV in this, but it should return to Jim's POV in the next chapter x

Jim stood there on his balcony, phone still pressed firmly against his ear as if he was waiting for an explanation to come from the other end. There was another sigh, then Sebastian spoke again. 

"I can't talk about it over the phone. Is there somewhere I can meet you?"

"Wait twenty minutes, then go downstairs to the street. Get into the car waiting and it will take you where you need to go." 

Jim hung up the phone without waiting for a response from Sebastian and went to work rather quickly. Using the slight variations of tones on his keypad, he was able to text fluidly without having to rely on sight. And within those twenty minutes there would be a meeting set up for Sebastian's specific needs. Jim, unfortunately, would not attend said meeting, he couldn't drop everything just because someone he barely knew needed a favour. He hardly did that with people he'd known for years. 

 

Across the river Sebastian sat in the office of what looked like an ordinary rental car service but he would quickly learn that anything with Moriarty was anything but ordinary. Not that he minded, just wished he knew what was going to happen. He wasn't used to not being in the know and it put him just a tad on edge. 

The door shut behind him and it made the ex soldier snap his head back to see who was there. To his disappointment it wasn't the dark mysterious Irishman he'd met seventeen days ago.

"I was expecting Moriarty," he explained when he stood up to shake the man's hand. "I assume he'll be in later?"

"Oh, no Mr Moriarty just set up the meeting, I'll take it from here."  

Sebastian furrowed his brow but didn't say anything else on the subject, as long as he was able to get off the radar, and in turn get away from his past. 

Much to his surprise Mr Ewart never asked why he needed to disappear, it wasn't a story he wanted to get into telling. They just talked about what exactly Sebastian would need to do within the next few days, where to go, etc...

And in the end it was quite simple. A corpse taken from the morgue of St Bart's, a well written suicide note easily found in his old flat, and a very impressive car fire leaving the body burnt beyond recognition. Sebastian was told someone would change the dental records to match and after four days of not leaving a secluded loft, it was done. As far as the general population was concerned Colonel Sebastian Moran was dead. 

It took all of about three hours after getting the "all clear" before he received a phone call from an unsaved number on the burner cell he'd been instructed to buy. 

"Hello?" Sebastian said with slight hesitation. 

"You sound worried. Normal people don't sound worried when they answer a phone." the Irish lilt was hardly unrecognizable.

"How- I just bought this phone. How did you get-"

"I believe the question you meant to ask was how can you repay me for this generous gift." Jim said, the words fell in a low hum.

"Right. Yeah I mean I was going to. You just didn't let me finish." Sebastian sounded more confident now. 

Jim found himself smiling a little at the subtle change in his tone. "I see." 

"Well..." 

There was a pause as it seemed Sebastian was waiting for Jim to kill him through the phone, while Jim couldn't decide if he wanted to laugh or be completely offended by the remark. 

"I need a new bodyguard." Jim stated without any mention of what Sebastian had said before. Thinking it best to just move past it. For now, at the very least. 

"Do normal people need body guards?" The ex-soldier asked, a slight jab at Jim's comment about his first hesitation. 

"No. They don't. But I do. You owe me, Moran. I made you disappear," Moriarty paused and his voice rumbled with the next few words. "And I can bring you right back." 

There was a deafening silence over the two mobiles, Sebastian's palms were sweaty as the threat repeated over and over. He knew enough about Moriarty for it to sound deadlier than it would to anyone else, he also knew if he said no that there wouldn't be some negotiation of another form of payment.

"When do I start, boss?"  


	9. Employee of the month

Jim hired Sebastian Moran out of a debt to settle with him. Once he made the ex-soldier disappear from the national database he could do whatever he wanted with him. And with a few sensitive meetings in a few months he could do with a new bodyguard. One that would do whatever he said without question, after all he was already a dead man as far as the British Government was concerned, the added military training wouldn't hurt either. The weeks after Moriarty had hired the sniper were quiet, he typically heard among the men if someone was working out or not, it was like working with hens the way they were always clucking about someone or another. But Sebastian had done a good job staying out of their conversation. Jim couldn't work out if it was a good thing or not, but that was soon decided for him. 

He had a meeting scheduled that afternoon, one face to face with a particular drug kingpin who apparently didn't appreciate how Jim was doing more business than he was. He thought he was the king of the castle, someone obviously never told him about Moriarty. But Jim wasn't an unreasonable man, he gave him the meeting and there they were with Jim on one side of the desk and his guest on the other. Only now Jim had the addition of Sebastian on his side, flanking the desk with a cold silence and the weight of an automatic rifle in his arms. Jim wore his dark glasses so his scars were nearly covered but about half an inch around them the ragged and rippled skin peeked out. No one on the other side knew if he was blind, just looked like a freak under there or did it all for show - he could hear it in their voices as they chose their words. But this guy, fuck he was different. 

 

"You're selling to my customers, that ain't how we do business." The kingpin spat, jim could hear him moving in the leather chair as the fabric gave under his weight. "You gotta back the fuck off or things'll get real fuckin messy 'round here." 

Jim tilted his head a little and then a whisper of a smile worked over his lips, making the other man exhale through his nose like a horse. 

"No." The Irishman replied, drawing out the word as if he were bored. 

"The fuck you mean no?" Kingpin barked back. 

"I believe the reply was direct and to the point. But if you need it explained to you, I suppose I can." Jim leaned back and tilted his head back, "I won't stop selling to my customers regardless of their previous patronage. I won't change the way I run my business simply because it's inconvenient to you. And I won't-" 

The sound of the kingpin moving was swiftly followed by about thirty rounds being fired, cutting Jim off mid sentence. 

"Colonel Moran." Jim signed, looking for an explanation. "I don't like being interrupted."

"Sorry, sir. He was reaching for a gun." The man replied like a soldier  

Jim only grinned before standing up, turning his head slightly to the right towards Sebastian, "Good boy."

 


End file.
